God is love ;

♥ l o v e

Tried to write a letter; In ink
Jesus gave me the Word; I wrote, for His glory

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Thursday, April 3, 2008 ( 1:30 PM )

Do You Know?...

nong nong ago in China...(4 000 years ago)

Emperors of ancient China had a tradition of sacrificing to the deity known as "Shang Di", meaning "Heavenly Emperor", or One who held ultimate supremacy. The emperors of old thought they carried a mandate from heaven, and so they were also known as "sons of heaven".

In their worship of Shang-Di, the emperors had to make a yearly trip to the outskirts of the capital or to a grand city. There on an altar constructed outdoors, they presented a healthy young bull to be burnt as a sacrifice. This was known as the "border sacrifice". The earliest border sacrifices were recorded in the classic The Book of History, in which Confucius noted that the emperor Shun (2255 B.C)" thence presented sacrifices to Shang-Di. Again in the The doctrine of the Mean Confucius explained that the border sacrifice was intended as a service to Shang-Di.

From ancient times, the Chinese people worshipped Shang-Di on the summit of Mount Tai. In the temple called " Temple of Heaven" hung 2 tablets with the word "Shang-Di of Supreme Heaven".

Unfortunately, with the passing of time and the impact of politics, the border sacrifice slowly lost its significance and its practice was eventually omitted, since then, the Chinese forsook worshipping the one God to many gods.
They made chinese historical heroes, characters in the Chinese classic literatures as gods to be worshipped, even ordinary people who passed away found themselves in the class of immortals.

Q: Who in actual fact was the God worshipped by the ancient Chinese??
(Lao-Tze is somehow the starter of Taoism)

Lao-Tze ( always pronounced as lao zi), the quintessentially Chinese expositor of Tao("The way" or "The spoken Word"), states in his classic Tao Te Ching: "A being entirely one existed before the creation of the universe. How quiet and empty it was! This Being exists independently without changing and moves about without tiring, and could be considered the Mother of the Heavens and the Earth. Not knowing the name, I use the expression 'Tao' ". Clearly, Lao-Tze's Tao is the One Being who started the universe and everything in it. The Tao Te Ching also opens with:"Tao can be expressed in words, but is not the way commonly perceived by man".

In the Bible, the Gospel of John opens with:"in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Tao is the spoken expression of God, and in the beginning had the same status and even the same identity as God.
Through earnest meditation, Lao-Tze was able to understand a little of the nature of Tao, but the Bible is written under the guidance of God Himself. This example illustrates how man can never come to the knowledge of God if He had not revealed Himself.

Jesus said:"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Know Jesus Know Peace, no Jesus no peace.